


Lucky

by Servena



Series: Lucky [1]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: After Holland, Exhaustion, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Reading Aloud, Sick Character, Sick!Gene, Sickfic, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-12 09:18:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19943785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Servena/pseuds/Servena
Summary: “Gene’s sick, looks like he caught the same stuff you did. I almost had to tie him to the bed, he still wanted to do his rounds.”





	Lucky

“Where’s Gene?” Babe asks immediately as Spina walks through the door to their barracks.

Spina gives him a slightly exasperated look. “Jesus, Babe, I’m also a medic, you know?”

“I know”, Babe says a bit sheepishly, “but usually we get Gene.”

A few of the other guys mumble in agreement.

Spina sets his medic bag down on a table. “Gene’s sick, looks like he caught the same stuff you did. I almost had to tie him to the bed, he still wanted to do his rounds.”

“That’s the Doc for ya”, Bill says.

Half of Easy Company had gotten sick on their return from Holland, and Gene had tirelessly handed out medicine to those afflicted. Babe himself had felt pretty miserable for the last few days. Only this morning had he woken up and finally felt like a human being again.

“He alone?” he asks, already starting to tie his boots.

“Yeah”, Spina says, “I told him to lie down. Let’s hope he actually does.”

“I’m gonna go check on him”, Babe says. He gets up and slips into his jacket.

“Remember, we got a field problem in half an hour!” Bill calls after him on his way to the door.

“I know!” he says hurriedly, but internally he muses whether he might just not show up.

Babe opens the door to the room Gene is staying in just in time to catch him on his bed throwing up into a bucket in front of him. He winces. The view brings up very uncomfortable recent memories. But he isn’t usually squeamish (and if he had been, crawling through pig guts in basic training surely would’ve beaten that out of him), so he steps inside and pulls the door shut behind him. “So I guess you finally got lucky, huh?”

Gene just glances up at him and nods slightly before coughing a couple of times, but there’s nothing more coming up. When Babe hands him his field bottle, he accepts it gratefully to rinse out his mouth. Babe can’t help but notice that he’s even paler than usual, and when he finally speaks, his voice sounds rough. “Guess so. Lucky me.”

He sits up with a groan and nudges the bucket a bit farther away with his foot. “Spina visit you yet?”

“Yeah, he told us you got it.”

Gene nods slowly and hands him the bottle back. For a moment he doesn’t say anything, then he frowns at him and asks: “Babe. You need anything?”

Babe has a feeling that he should be a bit offended. “Me? No, I just wanted to check on you.” His eyes catch on Gene’s half-tied combat boots. “Spina said he wasn’t sure you were gonna stay put. Guess he was right.”

Gene looks just slightly guilty at that. “I just thought I could… but apparently not.” He runs a hand over his face. He looks exhausted, not in the way Gene usually looks exhausted, like a medic who worries too much and gets too little sleep, but like someone who might keel over any minute. The dark rings under his eyes are more pronounced than usual, and his dark hair is a mess. He’s leaning forward with his arms braced on his legs to keep himself upright.

“Well, I’m gonna make sure you will”, Babe declares firmly. He expects at least a bit of protest, but Gene just nods slightly. “But first, I’m gonna clean this up.” He nods in the direction of the bucket.

“You don’t have to. I’m gonna…” He makes a weak gesture, but doesn’t even make an attempt at getting up. When Babe takes the bucket to the bathroom, he doesn’t protest.

When he gets back Gene is struggling to get out of his boots. His fingers won’t seem to cooperate and leaning forward isn’t doing his complexion any favors.

“Wait, let me.” Babe kneels down in front of him to help. It’s a bit weird to do it the other way around, but he figures it out. He watches Gene sink back onto the bed with a mix of satisfaction and concern.

“I put the bucket back over here”, he says with a nod in the right direction.

Gene pulls a face at the reminder. “Good.”

He guesses that this would be his cue to leave now, since there’s not much else he can do, but somehow it doesn’t feel right. It’s unsettling to see the guy sick who usually takes care of everybody else. Babe notices that he isn’t complaining much, he takes the sickness simply as something to ride out and be done with, while Babe had been bitching to everyone in his general vicinity as soon as he had started feeling ill (so much that Bill had threatened to take him behind the barracks and shoot him to put him out of his misery).

The Doc had been far too busy then to stay with him for long then, but he had kept checking on him, his “How ya doing, Heffron?” a comforting sound when all he had wanted to do was roll over and die.

Now Babe is determined to take care of him the way he deserves it, but on the other hand he worries that his presence might not be welcome and the Doc is simply too kind to tell him to fuck off. In fact he has been worried about that for quite a while now, since their relationship hovers in that weird spot between simple acknowledgement and friendship. And then there are the other feelings Babe doesn’t care to examine any closer, because if he slipped up on them the Doc would surely want nothing more to do with him, and he can’t imagine something worse happening.

So instead of leaving he looks around awkwardly until his eyes catch on the book on the nightstand. “What are you reading?”

Gene just makes a gesture to tell Babe to take a look himself. “My Ma send it to me. But right now I ain’t reading anything, just makes me feel worse.”

Babe reads the back cover. “Looks interesting”, he remarks, to which Gene only hums. A glance confirms that Gene has closed his eyes, resting on his pillow with one arm wrapped around his stomach.

He turns back to the book. A postcard from his parents marks the spot where Gene stopped reading, somewhere in the middle. “I could read to you”, Babe says suddenly. “I mean, if you don’t want me to fuck off.”

Gene turns his head slightly, but doesn’t open his eyes. “Read to me?”

“I can read!” Babe says a bit indignantly, which earns him a low chuckle.

“Know you can.”

He’s just about to put the book down and leave Gene to get some much-deserved sleep when Gene mumbles: “Yeah, that sounds nice.”

“Yeah?” He takes the book and settles down on the edge of the bed. “But don’t complain when every single character’s got a Philly accent.”

Gene still looks like death warmed over, but at least now he’s smiling slightly. Babe takes out the postcard and starts to read, angling himself so he can keep one eye on Gene.

And fuck Sergeant Peacock and his field problems.


End file.
